This invention generally relates to adhesive media, and more particularly, to an adhesive assembly for adhering an object to a substrate and the ability to remove the object without leaving adhesive residue on the substrate.
Objects, such as an emblem or patch, including, but not limited to, security badges, police badges, work badges, ski tickets, nametags, pictures, logos, identification media and/or any other object that a user may desire to affix to another object or substrate, are typically sewn or conventionally mounted onto a substrate, such as, but not limited to, clothing and/or any other surface upon which it is desirable to affix an object. However, sewing and conventional mounting, such as Velcro® and mechanical fasteners, are time-consuming, expensive and cumbersome. Commonly, such objects, particularly badges or emblems, are glued or adhesively attached to the substrate, which is often a work shirt or other clothing item. Unfortunately, when the object or emblem is removed, the shirt or substrate can be damaged and adhesive residue remains on the shirt or substrate thereby reducing the ability to re-use the shirt or substrate due to the unsightly appearance of the adhesive residue.
Apparel and accessory manufacturers use various methods to construct garments and apply decoration and identification to garments and textiles. Common technologies include sewing, heat-sealing tapes or adhesives, sonic welding, direct embroidery and heat activated transfer.
Various methods are used for joining textile products together and for applying decoration and identification to textile materials. Sewing is most commonly used to join fabrics together and for attaching decorative elements. This process is both machinery and labor intensive.
Direct embroidery is another option and is typically performed by a machine that applies stitching of various colors and styles directly onto the fabric substrate to create a design. Embroidered designs have a much greater aesthetic value, and withstand repeated home and industrial launderings. However, direct embroidery remains a complex, expensive and time-consuming process as well. Emblems are discrete items containing decoration which are manufactured separately and post-applied by various means such as sewing or adhesive to textile articles, obviating some of the disadvantages of direct embroidery.
Sonic welding is another method used to apply decoration and identification to garments and textiles. This process requires the creation of unique, expensive special dies for any design to be applied. Sonic welding allows texturing, but also requires chemical compounds that some companies find unacceptable, and that can result in a product that does not withstand stretching or repeated home and industrial laundering.
Up until now the methods used for attaching fabric to fabric or decorations to fabric have required sewing which is time consumptive and to be performed economically requires machinery and skilled operators. Another method of permanently adhering textiles to textiles is through the application of heat to activate a thermoplastic adhesive. While these methods create durable washable bonding they are impractical for quickly bonding textile products together with the ability to easily and cleanly remove the object.
The apparel industry is gravitating toward quick-change low-inventory production, but the labor, inventory, and other costs associated with the foregoing techniques make them relatively slow and expensive. Consequently, embroiderers and other apparel customizers using these techniques typically require substantial minimum-quantity orders, and bulk orders are only justified where economics warrant the expenditure associated with sewn-in decorations or heat-sealing them onto products. Apparel manufacturers would much prefer to customize articles in small batches to keep turnaround time and inventory at a minimum. For smaller quantity orders, however, sewing and heat-sealing decorations onto apparel, home furnishings or luggage is costly and time consuming and often requires specialized equipment and skilled operators.
In a commercial environment industrial sewing equipment or heat presses would be necessary to set up and operate in production to decorate textile based items. In addition, the manufacture of heat applied bonding such as seams, appliqués and emblems requires special equipment to apply the adhesive to the base layer.
Though sewing and stitched embroidery are avoided in all of the foregoing cases to initially bond products, the resulting products cited above are inferior in durability and cannot withstand repeated washing or require additional process steps of sewing or heat-sealing. It would be greatly advantageous to consumers and industry to provide a method for adhesively bonding textile products, appliqués, emblems and other textile-based brand identification or fabrics to apparel and or accessories, headwear, crafts, home furnishings and luggage which is less time consuming and labor intensive than affixing by sewing or heat-sealing. Importantly, the ability to easily remove the emblem without damaging the article has become a significant need in the industry.
Many uniform suppliers, such as Cintas, the assignee of this invention, currently offer uniform direct sale and rental programs to customers of all types. For these customers, customized uniform embellishments in many varieties (embroidered emblems, screen print, direct embroidery, etc.) are available that serve to represent the customer's brand name, give customer recognition, and even show people's names. The majority of such customers are directed to select a style of uniform embellishment called an embroidered emblem. This is a small, usually rectangular patch of fabric that is embroidered with a company or individual name and then applied to a garment via heat activated glue. The embroidered emblems are delivered with glue, fabric, and thread all attached and in one piece and can be applied to “heat seal” the emblem to the garments. Heat sealing is a process of attaching an emblem to a garment using a heated hydraulic head that applies pressure and heat at a specific temperature for a specific amount of time.
Currently, such emblems can be removed from the garment substrate, but a nasty stain is left from the melted glue (see FIG. 3) which means the shirt can only be reused if an emblem of the same size (or bigger) is put on the garment in the exact same place. This limits the available garment embellishment styles and locations because the very costly risk of ruining garments.
Therefore, a solution for the clean removal of adhesively applied emblems such as embroidered emblems/patches/other garment embellishments without leaving any scarring, glue stains or marks is needed. Such a solution could save significant sums of dollars annually as well as contribute significantly to the re-use of existing garments offering embellishments to users anywhere on the garment which is not viable without fully removable emblems and adhesive.